'There definitely is a God': Christians hit back at atheist buses with own adverts

Hmm - Communism? Rings a bell? A proper example of what happens when atheism turns into faith (or at least part of a faith) and goes on against new
"heretics".

Communism? Are you serious? Communism is a political and socioeconomic ideology, it has nothing to do with religion. Thus why such a thing called
Christian communism is possible.

There is a difference between an atheist and a secular ideology.

You can, as some Christians do, try to argue that Communism or Nazism were based on atheism, but the reality is that they weren't. And even if Marx,
Stalin, Hitler, Lenin, Mao were atheists, they never did the things they did in the name of atheism. They did it because of socioeconomic and/or
political ideas.

Leninism holds that capitalism can only be overthrown by revolutionary means; that is, any attempts to reform capitalism from within, such as
Fabianism and non-revolutionary forms of democratic socialism, are doomed to fail. The first goal of a Leninist party is to educate the
proletariat, so as to remove the various modes of false consciousness the bourgeois have instilled in them, instilled in order to make them more
docile and easier to exploit economically, such as religion and nationalism.

At most, communists saw religion as a barrier to their ideas, and in that sense they were (for the most part) against it.

And as for Hitler.. well, Hitler wasn't even an atheist.

"Therefore, I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work." ― Mein
Kampf

Really i dont know why there was an atheist one in the first place,that money could have been better spent,send it to a charity for the congo or
something...Leave cheap posters on buses for religion,cant blame the poor sods though,record people dont go to church in the uk,atheism is on the
rise, our society is becoming more and more secular.Sorry religion, the lure of an invisible sky daddy with super powers went out of fashion in the
last dark age sadly.

The human brain is a very powerful thing and I suppose you could make the correlation between people who wholeheartedly believe in Voodoo magic often
showing psychosimatic symptoms when they find out they've been put under a curse.
Despite it feeling very real to them,the curse is illusionary and the phenomenon has more to do with the psychological make up of the brain rather
than any paranormal explanation.

Yes it is a very powerful thing. Placebos and the countless mental illnesses that influence the body is proof of this. All I ask is that people be
skeptical. A good amount of doubt is healthy.

No it doesn't,especialy when people just cherrypick the nice bits from the abrahamic mythologies and leave out all the unhinged,sociopathic
instruction.

Its interesting that when you actualy ask a 'true beleiver' how he/she actualy knows that "god definitely exists" all you get back are vague
mutterings,ambivalent remarks,ambiguous comments and nonsensical cryptic doublespeak.

I suppose a person could beleive with all their heart that
'The Lord of the Rings' is a factual,historical document - it doesn't necessarily make it true.

Indeed. This is why I think NDE's are usually so subjective. If you look at the background of the individual's beliefs, you will see that the NDE
experience mirrors it. This explains why Christians see a white light and Christ, why Atheists report a void, etc. I believe the same goes for OBE's.
Of course, I'm not saying that there is absolutely no possibility that NDE's and OBE's have a non-physical basis. There's a small possibility that
they are, but I lean towards mundane explanations.

George makes some good points:

I really liked George Carlin, but now I like him even more after hearing this.

Originally posted by karl 12
Its interesting that when you actualy ask a 'true beleiver' how he/she actualy knows that "god definitely exists" all you get back are vague
mutterings,ambivalent remarks,ambiguous comments and nonsensical cryptic doublespeak.

Well, that may be what you normally get, but there are those who have a personal experience that leads them to their belief. Just like touching a
table makes me assume its existence. Mind you my God is not the Christian God as they describe it, it is more the God of Spinoza, or Einstein. Not
an anthropomorphized God. But my experience of it was personal and first hand, not based on hearsay.

I do agree with you there -spirituality is a completely different animal to organised religion and deism (rather than theism) is quite an attractive
proposition.
I was more referring to the agenda based cultist opinion of attempting to prove their specific doctrine and boldly stating they are somehow aware of
the 'true nature' of god/gods without being able to verbalise their opinions
or prove them in any way,shape or form.

When you speculate theres to said to be an incomprehensively mindboggling 5000 billion galaxies out there (each containing 10 to 100 billion stars)
and also then look at results emerging the quantum world it becomes apparent the universe is far more bizarre and incredible than many people give it
credit for.
With regard to god or gods ,I think the only honest answer is 'noone knows anything for sure'.

Einstein and Spinoza's (and Sagan's) opinions about god and the universe are very interesting to speculate on and I've always liked these quotes by
Albert:

I don't try to imagine a personal god;it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world,insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to
appreciate it."
Albert Einstein

The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a
stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting
itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms.

But he also said:

"The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive
legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.
No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.
Albert Einstein

Also ,Carl Sagan makes some mighty fine points here:

"Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a
universe in which there are far more galaxies than people."
Carl Sagan

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our
prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?' Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' Carl
Sagan

As does physicist Peter Walker:

“The supreme arrogance of religious thinking: that a carbon-based bag of mostly water on a speck of iron-silicate dust around a boring dwarf
star in a minor galaxy … would look up at the sky and declare, ‘It was all made just so that I could exist!’”
Physicist Peter Walker

I think the most important thing is to keep an open mind about the subject of spirituality but when specific organised religious cults/sects start
openly proseltysing about their opinions as 'factual' then they should indeed be curtailed and reminded that healthy scepticism does exist and that
the only authority they have in society is 'inside' their respective temples.
Cheers.

I would love for people to stop being true believers and to become experiencers instead. Including some scientists, btw. It is amazing how many of
them can get locked into a theory and then refuse to look at contradictory evidence, and even at times fudge their own data to support what they want
to believe.

I am, and always will be, with Socrates on knowing.

The only wisdom there is to be had, is knowing that one can never really know. And enjoying the questioning for what it is. An ongoing process with
no end in sight.

For God, and for science. We do not know the true causes of things in science. (the whole hidden variables argument) We have high probabilities only.
Science can eliminate or make negative statements far more readily than it can positive ones. We can say what is not, much more accurately than we
can say what is. But, who really needs to know when the art of looking and questioning is so fun?

Someone else realizes it's not having the answers that makes it worth while, it's the process of discovering them.

Once I have the answers to a question, or at least an adequate probability, I don't care about it any more... I want another question.

One thing that aggravates me about so many people is when they think they have their answer... instead of moving on, they get stuck spending their
whole life gloating over that answer. Especially when it comes to the question of belief or lack of it.

Heck, they're so stuck on that one concept they actually literally devote their entire lives to it.

People who grew up with their beliefs are so afraid of questioning them. Afraid enough that they get angry when directly asked a simple question :
Why?
This tells me that they haven't actually asked the questions themselves, they've just always gone along with the answer they've been told to
believe.

Me... I asked myself that question a LONG time ago. Yes, my answer was none of the above, Atheism... but it's a question you have to ask yourself, and you can't be afraid to admit the truth to
yourself.
Only you can answer the question of beliefs. People can give you all the evidence one way or the other... but only you can answer it.

That works both ways, I've known religious people who were afraid to admit to themselves that they quite simply didn't believe any more (one of them
a minister)... and I've known Atheists who were rattled by the notion that they were beginning to believe.

I'll give you the same answer I gave them... don't avoid the question, answer it and move on.

The best part about finding the answer is knowing you can go after the next question.

What did I do when I had the answer to "What do I believe in"?
I looked for more questions.

We entirely support free expression and freedom of belief, and so fully support the right of these Christian groups to place their ads on buses.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Of course, there are differences between the Atheist Bus ads and the new Christian ones and I want to take this opportunity to reflect them.

Our ads were a response to ads run by jesussaid.org whose website promised an eternity of hellfire for non-Christians. Our response message, suggested
by comedy writer Ariane Sherine was intended to be reassuring, telling people not to worry and enjoy life, as there was probably no god and so no
cause to fear an eternity of hellfire.

Our ads were funded entirely by thousands of individual donors who gave small amounts in an outpouring of popular support for the positive message.
The ads now launched in response to our response are funded by organisations or wealthy individuals.

Our ads were positive and peaceful. They didn’t say, for example, that religious people were ‘fools’, unlike one of the response ads being run,
which says that "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God."

Our ads were undogmatic and funny, with the addition of the ‘probably’ in line with the continuing openness of humanists to new evidence and in an
echo of previous funny ads, like the Carlsberg ad which stated that it was ‘probably the best lager in the world’. The new ads are dogmatic and
declaratory, leaving no room for reason and debate.

Of course, these groups are free to express themselves as they choose. Our ads encouraged people to think for themselves and I am convinced that they
will continue to do so.

Originally posted by converge
You can, as some Christians do, try to argue that Communism or Nazism were based on atheism, but the reality is that they weren't. And even if Marx,
Stalin, Hitler, Lenin, Mao were atheists, they never did the things they did in the name of atheism. They did it because of socioeconomic and/or
political ideas.

In the same way people are not slaughtered for Christ. It may have been the excuse, but it clearly and certainly did not abide by:

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute
you," - Matthew 5:43-44

War has always been about land, power, money, social status, and other forms of greed...as you say, "socioeconomic and/or political ideas".

Certainly it is, I've verified it. If someone else hasn't verified it then it does not make it unverifiable.

You have verified God's existence? Am I reading that right? You do know what to verify means right?

1. to prove the truth of, as by evidence or testimony; confirm; substantiate: Events verified his prediction.
2. to ascertain the truth or correctness of, as by examination, research, or comparison: to verify a spelling.
3. to act as ultimate proof or evidence of; serve to confirm.

Where is the evidence, that you clearly must have to claim God exists, that we can examine?

Certainly it is, I've verified it. If someone else hasn't verified it then it does not make it unverifiable.

Verify:
1. to prove the truth of, as by evidence or testimony; confirm; substantiate: Events verified his prediction.
2. to ascertain the truth or correctness of, as by examination, research, or comparison: to verify a spelling.
3. to act as ultimate proof or evidence of; serve to confirm.
4. Law. a. to prove or confirm (an allegation).
b. to state to be true, esp. in legal use, formally or upon oath.

If you've 'verified the existance of the abrahamic god' then I look foward to seeing your
unequivocable,unassailable,incontrovertible,tangible,concrete proof.

I think this quote sums it up quite well:

"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything".
Frederick Neitzche

Originally posted by converge
You have verified God's existence? Am I reading that right? You do know what to verify means right?

1. to prove the truth of, as by evidence or testimony; confirm; substantiate: Events verified his prediction.
2. to ascertain the truth or correctness of, as by examination, research, or comparison: to verify a spelling.
3. to act as ultimate proof or evidence of; serve to confirm.

Ya, and appreciate the definition. The dictionary is my second most used book.

Originally posted by converge
Where is the evidence, that you clearly must have to claim God exists, that we can examine?

Notice the definition does not say anything about being able to share that proof. I can help others obtain their own proof as God is more interested
in a personal relationship rather than waving around a photograph. Not that a photograph would matter here anyway.

Originally posted by converge
Aren't you forgetting something? Like, I don't know.. the Inquisition?

I did not forget, this was not motivated by Christ's words (see the quote I cited). If you're into counting bodies, check out the crusade against
Christians in Russia. Not 500 years ago but within the last 100 years:

It is estimated that some 20 million Christians (17 million Orthodox 3 million Roman catholic) died or were interned in gulags. Some actions
against Orthodox priests and believers along with execution included torture being sent to prison camps, labour camps or mental hospitals. The result
of this militant atheism was to transform the Church into a persecuted and martyred Church. In the first five years after the Bolshevik
revolution, 28 bishops and 1,200 priests were executed

Originally posted by saint4God
Notice the definition does not say anything about being able to share that proof.

Ahahaha I'm sorry, that's just hilarious. You have proof of God's existence, but you decide not to share... OK. Yeah, that reminds me of little
kids who pretend to know something and when asked about it they say they can't tell you.

I can help others obtain their own proof as God is more interested in a personal relationship rather than waving around a
photograph.

In other words: belief. That's the only way you can say God 'exists', if you believe he does. And last I checked there was nothing about
belief in that definition of verification.

Imagine if all the religious cults/sects started advertising their
opinions - the advertising world would be flooded with a veritable pantheon of gods and goddess advertisements ...all boldy claiming that their
particular deity 'definitely' exists and everybody else has it wrong or is delusional.

then i would ask that atheists prove that there is no God to begin with.

You can't get mad at these organization defending their beliefs, just like the atheist began to do.

I don't blame them, just like a whole lot of atheists are offended at having religion shoved down their throats, religious groups are being offended
by the declaration that "there is probably no God"

That statement doesn't only affect Christian groups, but others as well.

They knew what they were getting into by placing those advertisements, and they couldn't have expected everyone just to sit down and take it...as far
as I'm concerned, those advertisements were done for more than just voicing their belief (or lack thereof), but also to provoke the religious outcry.

eh my $.02

edit: maybe this is where our society is headed to anyway, public displays of faith or not, and you better believe that the minute a religious group
is denied the right to post their advertisements a whole other equal rights movement would start up

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